Some of the passengers were non-Bulgarian citizens

More than 180 people have been evacuated from Israel by Bulgaria's government plane "Airbus 319". The machine has flown to Tel Aviv twice in the last 24 hours.

The passengers were mainly tourists and medical conference participants. 15 of them were non-Bulgarian citizens - 6 are from Romania, two each from Austria, Italy and Germany, and one each from Greece, Israel and Croatia.

Bulgaria's Minister of Transport, Georgi Gvozdeikov, announced that the evacuations will continue as long as there are Bulgarian citizens willing to be taken out of Israel. He added that other countries in the EU have expressed a desire for Bulgaria to transport their citizens and, if possible, this will be done.